In 1884 Alfred Harris Lockhart established his first business in the Virgin Islands (then known as the Danish West Indies prior to their sale to the United States in 1917). A.H. Lockhart had emigrated to St. Thomas from St. Croix, Virgin Islands where he was born in 1861. A.H. Lockhart's business consisted initially of a trading operation, first on the docks of St. Thomas' Charlotte Amalie Harbor and later in the harbor's venerable old warehouses.

Expansion

By the early 1900's A.H. Lockhart's businesses had expanded to include a major importing company, with exclusive distribution rights to many popular items (including various types of European distilled spirits), a lumber yard, a dry goods store (later, St. Thomas' first general department store), cattle and dairy farms, an abattoir, a hotel, a bakery, and increasing developed and undeveloped real estate interests all over St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Indeed, by the time of his death in 1931, A.H. Lockhart's holdings included approximately one-eighth of the privately held real property on St. Thomas and a larger percentage of St. John as well.

Transition

A.H. Lockhart's holdings were somewhat broken up after his death, as they were inherited separately by, and to some degree consumed in the support of, his six children and their respective families. The businesses were first incorporated in 1936 under the corporate name A.H. Lockhart & Co., Inc., by A. H. Lockhart's two sons, one being Herbert E. Lockhart, a daughter and a son-in-law.